11 of Land Bank’s 12 Oak Ridge houses demolished

Charlie Jernigan, chairman of the Land Bank Corporation board of directors, recently spoke at the League of Women Voters of Oak Ridge’s Lunch with the League on the project to deal with blighted houses in the city.

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By Heather Hicks/The Oak Ridger

Oakridger - Oak Ridge, TN

By Heather Hicks/The Oak Ridger

Posted May. 29, 2014 at 9:00 PM

By Heather Hicks/The Oak Ridger
Posted May. 29, 2014 at 9:00 PM

Charlie Jernigan, chairman of the Land Bank Corporation board of directors, recently spoke at the League of Women Voters of Oak Ridge’s Lunch with the League on the project to deal with blighted houses in the city.

The nonprofit real estate company, the Land Bank is working to help improve the curb appeal of Oak Ridge neighborhoods by removing homes that are now considered blighted, Jernigan said. He explained that although not all of these blighted homes are those constructed the Manhattan Project of World War II, the majority of them were built during that time. Not all of the WWII-era houses are blighted, he cautioned. But the blighted Manhattan Project-era houses were created to be temporary, and are not large enough to meet current code, and provide little to no parking, he said. These homes are on extremely small lots, so small that it is impossible to build a new home at meets current building codes on the existing properties.

Jernigan said that people who come to Oak Ridge to get jobs aren’t living here, and that is something the Land Bank aims to fix.

The Land Bank law, amended in 2014, allows “any home rule municipality or any county having a metropolitan form of government” to participate.

Jernigan noted that the weaknesses of the Land Bank law is that there is no sustained funding and there is no reformed tax foreclosure role.

According to Jernigan, the priorities of the Oak Ridge Land Bank are to: promote owner-occupied housing and stable neighborhoods; convert emptied small lots to increase the size of neighboring lots, or to create open space for mini-parks or gardens; create additional off-street parking, as well as similar kinds of community enhancements. The Land Bank also seeks to return property to productive tax-paying status and assemble tracts of land for residential and commercial development.

The Land Bank currently is in possession of 12 properties in Oak Ridge, 11 of which were blighted and destroyed. One of the properties was a renovation.

These properties, all in the older neighborhoods, are from one-10th to a one-sixth of an acre.

Jernigan said in the future, the organization hopes to increasingly work with the city and county governments, Habitat for Humanity of Anderson County, Aid to Distressed Families of Appalachian Counties (ADFAC), and Oak Ridge Housing Authority in order to better serve the community.

During a question-and-answer series, Jernigan fielded questions from concerned attendees during the lunch at the Oak Ridge Unitarian Universalist Church.

Will the Land Bank ever become self-sustaining? Jernigan assured the group that those people involved in the Land Bank are working toward that goal, but that ultimately it was necessary for them to make money on the sale of these properties in order to do that.

Page 2 of 2 - One audience member expressed concern that if the Land Bank is spending roughly $30,000 to demolish a home and turn it into a $10,000 lot.

Another attendee expressed concern that people are inferring that all of the WWII-era homes are blighted, when this isn’t the case. Jernigan assured the group that they want to preserve the history of Oak Ridge, but that it is important to deal with the homes which have deteriorated, some of which are beyond repair.

Jernigan explained that “blighted” homes are those which would cost more than half of the worth of the house to renovate it up to current housing code.